Secrets
by Charlie Edwards
In a frank and open interview with The Times today, Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpey, the Chief of the Air Staff, says that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington there has been at least one incident a month requiring an RAF fighter from a quick-reaction alert unit to intervene.
Elsewhere The Independent leads with a question about Freedom of Information, more precisely What Freedom of Information? Separately the two articles are newsworthy items of some interest. Read together they raise interesting questions about what information the Government is prepared to make public.
The interview in The Times is very open. According to Sir Glenn Tornado jet fighters are being scrambled on intercept counter-hijacking operations every month to check on commercial airliners flying into British airspace.
Apparently, four quick-reaction alert Tornado F3 planes are on permanent standby to investigate any plane that has not conformed precisely to accepted flight control procedures. Furthermore, we are told two Tornado’s are based at RAF Marham in Norfolk and a further two at RAF Leuchars. In addition, RAF fighter crews are kept in close proximity to royal flights in case of terror emergencies (which might help answer the first of the FOI requests from the Independent).
We are told that the RAF’s new Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft will take over the role of guarding airspace from hijacked airlines in the southern approaches for the first time and that they will operate from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.
Finally (if this wasn’t enough) it is revealed that although the Prime Minister would normally have to give personal authorisation for an airliner to be shot down, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary also have the necessary authorisation.
But would we have been able to solicit such detailed information under the FOI Act.
I doubt it. The Government is exempt from providing information from such a request if it would adversely affect defence, national security or public safety. But I take it that the point of the Times article is to demonstrate how the Government is preparing for such a terrorist attack, highlight the scale of the threat and reassure the public that things are under control (and if I were a cynic to highlight the importance of the RAF at a time when the media is focusing on the British Army).
Such a schizophrenic approach to information by Labour can only harm Government in the long term.
Put simply, broad access to information promotes better decisions. It permits public understanding of the activities of government and promotes more informed debate and accountability. And such access to information provides ground in which the public’s faith in its government can flourish.
On the other hand, the side effects of secrecy are numerous, the most obvious being the leaking of information.
As the scope of secrecy grows the prospect of leaking, nearly always on an anonymous basis, does as well. But as Sissela Bok argues leaking has a symbiotic relationship with secrecy. Without secrecy there would be no need to leak information. As government secrecy grows and comes to involve more people, the opportunities to leak from within expand; and with increased leaking, governments intensify their efforts to shore up secrecy.
As the US Congress Report of the Commission on protecting and reducing government secrecy suggests, An organisation with a secret will hold to it unless there is some exchange for releasing it. The Government becomes a market. Sometimes the exchange is quite palpable: I will exchange my secret for your secret. Sometimes less tangible: the willingness to bring along secrets can provide access for other purposes. But whatever the coinage, there are considerable transaction costs, as economists use this term. These are sluggish markets and highly imperfect ones; true prices are rarely known and impossible to determine.
One of Labour’s New Year resolutions should be to (re)create a culture of openness in government; it may well prove to be profitable in the long term.
Charlie Edwards
Today's leader in The Times suggests that MI5 should become accountable as it expands in size and role. it is worth a read but I feel it slightly misses the point - with a focus that is still too steeped in tradtion. The Times says:Secrecy is not necessarily at odds with accountability, however. Vacancies are now advertised: 90 per cent of applicants (100,000 a year express interest) are online. The head of the service reports directly to the Home Secretary, and occasionally also to the Prime Minister. MI5 regularly briefs the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC), a standing group of MPs trusted with considerable detail of its operations. And under the 2001 Regulation of Investigative Powers Act, its intelligence and interception operations are regulated by two judicial commissioners. MI5 argues that this ministerial, parliamentary and judicial oversight is sufficient. That cannot be a final position.Advertising for new recruits to MI5, as the leader suggests, is not a good example of openness. but knowing that Jonathan Evans, who served as head of G Branch, MI5’s international terrorism section, might become the new DG of MI5 is, I would argue, a sign that times are changing.
Charlie Edwards
A welcome intervention by Brown today on the accountability of the intelligence agencies. He is quoted in the FT saying “There is a case for looking at how through the Intelligence Security Committee (ISC), there is the fullest parliamentary scrutiny of the way the intelligence services operate,” the chancellor told reporters. “We need a wider remit for the ISC. We need to make sure we have proper parliamentary arrangements.”